Walter: Ill. Lawmakers Forgot The Fundamentals

CHICAGO (CBS) — My question is: How did our leaders of government — our oh-so-smart lawmakers in Springfield — get us into such a mess?

How could they have increased our taxes in a way that a freshman in law school would know to be illegal? They didn’t need a Sherlock Holmes to check it out, or an Einstein to understand, that if you want to raise taxes in Illinois you have to do it on just one thing at a time.

That’s the law, but our masterminds in Springfield apparently didn’t check it out, or think about it, or ask their expensive staffs and assistants to think about it.

They just did it — hiked those liquor and candy taxes illegally — in a hurry so they could spend $31 billion on construction projects and then hurry home to cut some ribbons and tell us what a good job they’re doing bringing home the bacon.

Never mind that now they have to ask their expensive staffs and assistants to appeal the court decision, and then to rewrite and re-impose the taxes.

Makes you wonder sometimes if there’s anything in state government that the people who are running it can do right.